Case Study: Indonesia – Sumatra 2009

On 30th September 2009 a series of earthquakes struck West Sumatra, not far from the provincial capital of Padang. 13 out of the 19 districts in West Sumatra province were affected. Between earthquakes and landslides nearly 250,000 houses were destroyed or heavily damaged.

This case study examines the government of Indonesia response whom responded rapidly, with the assistance of the national and international humanitarian community. Whilst non-government agencies focused on emergency shelter, distributing an average of 2 tarpaulins per family, the government focused on rebuilding provincial government capacity, search and rescue and emergency relief.

The emergency phase was declared over within 8 weeks. The Government of Indonesia committed to providing affected families with a community based economic stimulus package for permanent housing reconstruction, leaving the provision of emergency and transitional shelter to the humanitarian community, many of whom also focused on Disaster Risk Reduction based construction skills training.